Automotive rear body structures including a spare tire supporting structure that supports a spare tire or a punctured tire in a vertical position in a luggage compartment behind a rear seat are known. Examples of such automotive rear body structures include an automotive rear body structure that has an L-shaped bracket screwed to a flat surface of a floor panel behind a rear seat, in which a punctured tire is attached in a vertical position to the rear surface of a vertical part of the L-shaped bracket (for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-16354). Another example includes an automotive rear body structure in which a spare tire is attached to a rear surface of a cross member disposed on a floor panel behind a rear seat (for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2009-132169).
However, in the former example of the automotive rear body structure in which a punctured tire is attached in a vertical position to the rear surface of the vertical part of an L-shaped bracket attached to a flat surface of a floor panel behind a rear seat, higher attachment strength of the L-shaped bracket to the vehicle body needs is required. This is achieved by, for example, increasing the size of the L-shaped bracket, and thus the structure that supports a spare tire (or a punctured tire) with the L-shaped bracket also increases in size and weight.
In the latter example of the automotive rear body structure in which a spare tire is attached to the rear surface of a cross member, the height of the cross member needs to be increased in order to attach a hub of the spare tire to the rear surface of the cross member. For this reason, the size of the cross member increases and the amount of protrusion of the cross member into the vehicle interior increases, which reduces the vehicle interior space.
The present disclosure appropriately supports a spare tire in a standing position or a vertical position behind a rear seat without increasing the size and weight of the spare tire supporting structure, and without reducing the vehicle interior space while making effective use of an existing (original) rear body structure.